Yannis Papaïoannou (1910-1989)
24 Préludes for piano, AKI51 (1938-39)
Yannis Constantinidis (1903-1984)
Eight Dances from the Greek Islands (1954)
Dimitry Levidis (1886-1951)
Greek Romantic Sonata, No 1 Op 16 (1908)
Cyprien Katsaris (piano)
rec. 2020, Paris
MELISM RECORDS MLSCD035 [50:47]
Greek ‘classical’ music is, as you would expect, much broader than that we associate with the traditional if disparate band of brothers. We should not forget - how could we? - Skalkottas, Xenakis and Theodorakis. Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949) has been extensively recorded, especially by Bis. For a more Romantic approach there are Manolis Kalomiris (1883-1962) (review ~ review ~ review), Vasily Kalafati (review ~ review), Petros Petridis (1892-1977) and Spyridon Samaras. For a window opening towards an even more lush, Delian-static vista onto the Greek Mediterranean, try Georgios Axiotis (1875-1924). Appetite still unsated, then, if you can run it to ground, and if funds permit, don’t walk away from the thumpingly huge 12 CD set “Works by Greek Composers: 19th and 20th Century”. It was issued in 2003 as part of the Olympic Games celebrations by “The Hellenic Culture Organisation SA Culture Olympiad”. You will be spoilt for exploratory choices. Can you imagine such a set being issued with such panache or even miserable resentment to celebrate any other Olympic host-nation’s music?
In the case of this CD, Melism offer us, in a well-designed stiff-card digipak, the first step in a heartening voyage through the solo piano music of Greece. The recording catalogue might lead us to expect Katsaris’s studio time to be mortgaged to the hilt with the mainstream Romantics. In fact, here is a disc that delves substantially into Greek music of the last century by composers whose names may well be unfamiliar to most of us. Only with faintest of gestures in the Papaïoannou Preludes are we confronted with anything at all atonal.
Yannis Papaïoannou, studied in Athens and Thessaloniki and later with Honegger, in Paris. There are five symphonies, three piano concertos and much else. The AH51 set catches him at the end of his impressionistic period before he made a transition to nationalism. The Préludes are not profligate with your time. There’s no equivalence with concert overtures. More in the nature of mood asserters, each carries a poetic title. Visual worlds are conjured, even if those worlds are fantastic and most impressionistically shaped. They had me thinking of Debussy, Greville Cooke, Griffes, Baines, Moeran and just occasionally Macdowell. The title of one of them references Ravel. Very attractive and not taxing the attention-span, the prime criticism may be that occasionally they are over before the ‘image’ has been fully ‘fixed’. Meantime, there is much to be touched by and enchanted with. They are most skilfully adumbrated and touched in by Katsaris who knows well how to suggest rather than suffocate. If you try only one of these, then I suggest track 15 ‘Le Christ est ressuscité’ which, in language and subject matter, sounds akin to early Messiaen. If you regard this as an inducement to explore Yannis Papaïoannou further, then the solo piano music and several other pieces are on Naxos 8.572782.
Yannis Constantinidis was born in Smyrna in Turkey but made his career in Athens. He wrote music in most genres including for seven films. There were also to be more than a few operettas and musicals. The Eight Dances from the Greek Islands are short, shapely pieces and have what I take to be an authentically folksy feel. They are very approachable indeed and remind me of countryside-influenced works by Skalkottas and Vladigerov.
Dimitry Levidis studied in Athens, Lausanne and Munich but became a French citizen in 1929. He returned to Greece and wrote some music which, going by titles alone (a shaky criterion, I grant you), promises to be exciting: Divertissement for cor anglais, harps, strings, celesta and percussion, a Pan oratorio, the Iliad - a poem for violin and orchestra (1927) and a Chant paien for oboe and strings. Levidis’s
Op 16 is, by timing, a ‘pocket sonata’. That’s the only diminutive about it. The music swoons, swells, wanes and waxes with all the style, gales and sighs you would expect from the title. Elements of Chopin and early Rachmaninov, even Medtner, are artfully synthesised into one rhetorically aristocratic whole. Levidis - and Katsaris - cannot resist those gorgeous, pearly note ‘waterfalls’ we associate with Liszt especially in one of Katsaris’s staples: the Liszt’s transcriptions of the Beethoven symphonies (Teldec).
Katsaris’s Volume two in the series will be devoted in its entirety to more of the solo piano music of Yannis Constantinidis. It will let us hear the three sonatinas, 44 Greek miniatures and the two-piano variant of Dances from the Greek Islands (8). After that, who knows?
The booklet’s liner notes, in English, French and German, are by Nikolaus Samaltanos
Rob Barnett
Contents
Yannis Papaïoannou (1910-1989)
Préludes
No. 1. La nuit à la campagne (Lento) [2:17]
No. 2. Le matin près de la mer (Andante) [1:32]
No. 3. Aquarelle (Poco lento) [1:28]
No. 4. Danse (Allegretto) [1:06]
No. 5. Clair de lune (Molto moderato) [2:06]
No. 6. In Memoriam, "Hommage à Ravel" (Poco lento) [2:47]
No. 7. La brise (Moderato) [1:07]
No. 8. Souvenir (Andante) [1:36]
No. 9. Miss A. J. Eccentric (Andante con moto) [3:00]
No. 10. Le lac (Poco lento) [1:52]
No. 11. Tziganiana (Andante molto) [3:12]
No. 12. Les oiseaux aquatiques (Allegretto) [0:43]
No. 13. La Bayadère (Andante con moto) [2:37]
No. 14. Sérénité (Andantino) [1:40]
No. 15. Le Christ est ressuscité (Lento non troppo) [1:17]
No. 16. La vallée des peupliers (Lento assai) [2:11]
No. 17. Nuit translucide (Lento) [2:59]
No. 18. L'amazone (Allegro vivo ma leggiero) [0:46]
No. 19. La fée (Lento non troppo) [1:24]
No. 20. Crépuscule dans la forêt (Moderato) [1:31]
No. 21. La neige (Moderato) [0:55]
No. 22. Poisson d'or (Allegro ma tranquillo) [0:49]
No. 23. Le ruisseau (Poco allegro leggiero) [0:59]
No. 24. La nageuse (Poco allegro) [1:06]
Yannis Constantinidis (1903-1984)
Eight Dances from the Greek Islands
No. 1. Allegretto con grazia (On the Rhythm of the Syrtos Folk Dance) [1:17]
No. 2. Allegro moderato ma energico (Cykladitikos) [1:25]
No. 3. Allegretto (Karsilamas) [1:46]
No. 4. Andantino mosso (Zervodegios roditikos) [1:23]
No. 5. Con moto, "To Thalassaki" (Kalymnos) [1:31]
No. 6. Allegretto vivo e con spirito, "Ikames ke, kori, dendro" (Karpathos) [1:13]
No. 7. Moderato (Zeimbekikos - Dance from Rhodes) [1:52]
No. 8. Vivo e giocoso, "Me toy Maioy tis mirodies" (Pentozalis - Dance from Crete) [1:28]
Dimitry Levidis (1886-1951)
Griechische Romantische Sonate in einem Teil, Op 16 [8:22]
